Doping and Design of Flexible Transparent Electrodes for High‐Performance Flexible Organic Solar Cells: Recent Advances and Perspectives

Abstract

Substantial effort has been devoted to both chemical doping and design of flexible transparent electrodes (FTEs) for flexible organic solar cells (OSCs) in the past decade. Poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate), graphene, metal nanostructures, metal oxide/ultrathin metal/metal oxide, Mxene, and their hybrid electrodes emerge to be the most promising flexible conducting materials over indium tin oxide. The FTE fabrications play a critical role in flexible OSCs. This feature review article summarizes the current status on the researches of the FTEs including various approaches and strategies to boost the conductivity, work function, mechanical flexibility, wettability, etc, which directly affect the performances of the flexible OSCs. The most cutting edge progresses on both FTEs and flexible OSCs are highlighted along the line. Advantages and plausible issues are pointed out. Perspectives are provided that can advance the developments of the flexible OSCs. This review raises the awareness for the importance of developing plenty of FTEs and reveals their critical role in flexible OSCs.

Recent Advances in High‐Mobility and High‐Stretchability Organic Field‐Effect Transistors: From Materials, Devices to Applications

“…[35,36] Compared with small organic molecules, conjugated polymers have the advantages of light weight, solution process ability, and good flexibility, which are widely used for flexible electronics such as organic solar cells, supercapacitors, and optoelectronic devices. [37][38][39][40][41][42] Although OFETs based on the traditional semiconductor materials have high mobilities, the nature properties of the materials determine that these OFETs would be destroyed at a high strain. Therefore, how to endow organic semiconductor materials with high stretchability becomes a main issue for the further application of OFETs in stretchable electronic devices.…”

High‐Efficiency ITO‐Free Organic Photovoltaics with Superior Flexibility and Upscalability

“…[23] Further, the flexibility enables the OPVs more versatile applications due to their multiscenario adaptability. [24,25] As a result, developing flexible OPVs with upscaling capacity is of great importance for their practical applications.…”

High-Efficiency Flexible Organic Photovoltaics and Thermoelectricities Based on Thionyl Chloride Treated PEDOT:PSS Electrodes

“…Flexible OSCs, which convert the luminous energy to electricity, have the wearable, portable, and light-weight advantages for a promising application into self-powered smart electronics; whereas flexible TEs, which convert the waste thermal energy to electricity, can be attached to surfaces dissipating heats for electricity generation. As a key device component, the flexible transparent electrode and thermoelectric layer of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) have the striking virtues, such as aqueous solution manufacturing, low cost, high conductivity ( σ ), adjustable work function, and good thermal stability, thereby enabling a promising adaptation of them into flexible OSCs and flexible TEs ( Na et al, 2008 ; Kim et al, 2011 ; Xia et al, 2012 ; Kim et al, 2014 ; Fan et al, 2015 ; Meng et al, 2015 ; Worfolk et al, 2015 ; Song et al, 2018 ; Fan et al, 2019 ; Fan, 2021 ; Wan et al, 2020a ; Wan et al, 2020b ; Wen et al, 2021 ; Wan et al, 2021 ).…”